The present invention relates to electrical devices fitted with a low power radio transceiver like, personal digital mobile devices, user interfaces (UI) of phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs) and computers. The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for the exchange of objects (screen objects, files, data blocks, . . . ) between devices that are connected via short range radio. It also relates to the distributed execution of tasks in distributed wireless networks.
Conventional local area networks (LAN) require a hardware connection for the transmission of tasks between the two devices. The installation of the hardware is expensive, and the hardware is limited and requires maintenance. Devices not connected to the LAN cannot execute tasks from devices connected to the LAN. Standard computer applications use the copy and paste function to transfer objects to a clipboard and fetch them from the clipboard for other applications. With a wired connection, e.g., between computer and printer it is always evident if a printing task is present or not, and which printer is to execute the task. In computer networks it is possible to select a certain printer to execute the task, e.g., from a menu.
Conventional wireless local area network (WLAN) applications, require at least a chain of overlapping radio links to successively transfer a task from one device to another. If there are no overlapping radio ranges, the missing link of a WLAN connection between two devices has to be compensated by a wired bus connection or the like. The WLAN is not a fixed structure in which every device has a fixed location, so it can happen that a chain of overlapping radio links breaks down if a device of the chain is moved out of the radio range. If the WLAN is distributed, e.g., if most of the devices in the WLAN cannot directly connect to most of the other devices, the information overhead necessary for transmissions between two remote devices increases, and the data transfer rate decreases. The transfer of data or tasks in distributed WLANs, or to other LANs or WLANs is difficult and requires multiple user interaction.
Additionally, in WLANs the devices are not necessarily connected by hardware, as is the case with mobile devices like mobile phones, laptop computers, organizers, etc. which are not adapted to communicate with multiple other devices like printers and so on. Actually, the user cannot determine if he is in proximity of a device able to execute a task waiting in his personal device.